The relation of sounder sleep with safer anesthesia

A paper published in British Medical Journal talks about anesthesia that could have dangerous effects. “Anesthesia drugs today are just expensive cousins of ether”, says Dr. Beverley Orser, a professor in the Departments of Anesthesia and Psychology at the University of Toronto who holds the Canada Research Chair in Anesthesia. “We need to move beyond `not killing as many people as we once did` to `drug discovery`”.

 According to this study, death cases from anesthesia in developed countries is 1 out of 13,000, while in less developed states, this rate represents 1 out of 150. Anesthetics are associated with numerous cognition, memory and surgery respiratory-related problems. Richard Horner, a professor in U of T`s Departments of Medicine and Psychology explains the relation between anesthesia and sleep: “Anesthetics and painkillers are a black box. But increasingly, it seems they tap into the same molecular circuits that put our brains to sleep”.

Horner`s study also analyzes the origins of obstructed breathing while sleeping which if left untreated can become fatal. Sleep apnea is a respiratory problem that affects approximately 4% of the population, it also causes hypertension but it can double risks to stroke or heart attack as well. “The idea is to trick the cells that matter to keep the airway open, and this same thinking may keep patients breathing when they are asleep or anesthetized”, says Horner.